Top Ten Tuesday: Quotes From Historical Fantasy Books

“The Golem’s life began in the hold of a steamship.”

First line in The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

I have a Wyrd and Wonder-inspired Top Ten Tuesday post for you today as we had a bit of an open topic this week. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and this week we’re meant to share book quotes that fit a certain theme. Since my theme for Wyrd and Wonder has been Historical Fantasy, I’m obviously going to share some quotes from that genre only.

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The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

“Fear grew in places unlit by knowledge.”

Short and simply commentary on the danger of idiots.

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

“Sometimes, when I have to do something I don’t want to do, I pretend I’m a character from a book. It’s easier to know what they would do.”

I’m going to need to heed this advice more often.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

“Sometimes men want what they don’t have because they don’t have it. Even if everyone offered to share, they would only want the share that wasn’t theirs.”

A beautiful way of describing human greed that kind of makes you sad for the world.

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

“All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me.”

That is so powerful!

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

“I did not know I was to be outdone by a little magic boy and his tricks,” he said. “I salute you, magician.” He swept her a bow from horseback.

Vasya did not return the bow. “To small minds,” she told him, spine very straight, “any skill must look like sorcery.”

Also known as the best insult ever.

Burn by Patrick Ness

“I’m just a girl.”
“It is tragic how well you have been taught to say that with sadness rather than triumph.”

This book mixes feminism and dragons.

The Diviners by Libba Bray

“She was tired of being told how it was by this generation, who’d botched things so badly. They’d sold their children a pack of lies: God and country. Love your parents. All is fair. And then they’d sent those boys, her brother, off to fight a great monster of a war that maimed and killed and destroyed whatever was inside them. Still they lied, expecting her to mouth the words and play along. Well, she wouldn’t. She knew now that the world was a long way from fair. She knew the monsters were real.”

A quote spoken about the 1920s but which seems relevant for most generations.

Circe by Madeline Miller

“Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep.”

Thank god for modern literature.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

“Blink and you’re twenty-eight, and everyone else is now a mile down the road, and you’re still trying to find it, and the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.”

As someone who turns 28 in a month, I feel personally attacked by this quote.

Timekeeper by Tara Sim

“There comes a moment when time seems to slip faster, running long then short, shadows shrinking as the sun climbs. It’s the moment, he decided, when you’re no longer a child. When the concept of time and the need for more of it come together and make you powerless. Make you yearn for the longer days, the lazy days, before you knew what time passing actually meant.”

A very Covid-relevant quote I’d say.

Those were some of my favorite quotes from the Historical Fantasy books I’ve read. I could have chosen ten from the Winternight Trilogy alone, so I’m proud of myself for the restraint. Tell me which one is your favorite out of these ten! Happy Wyrd and Wonder.